TDMS Blog

With the constant rise of the internet in business, most of us know the benefits of analytics and some would say that we're obsessed with tracking how customers behave online. Problem is, when it comes to tracking our offline performance, most of us haven't got a clue of where to start.

Business metrics are an important consideration for every soloist as our most valuable resource is time, which must often be measured against the delivery of a service.

If you think about the drivers of success in your business, it's likely they relate to existing customer behaviour such as loyalty, word of mouth and their ability to pay your bill. But if I ask you how you're performing on each of these drivers, are you able to easily tell me?

With the right tools in your office and a small amount of discipline, measuring your offline metrics is a relatively easy task. It's a matter of tracking your time in relation to productivity then assigning them both to a billable client's job.

Imagine this. You've spent the past few weeks working on a client project that is split into five key tasks:

1. Client meetings

2. Client communications

3. Market research

4. Document drafting and

5. Travel

The project is a fixed-fee invoice so you've already worked out that the client can afford to pay, and you're now in control of how you allocate your tasks to deliver the project.

As you work through the project, you track your time using an automatic timer then assign each job to the client and the appropriate task. All is going well and the client is thrilled with your work but at the end of the project, you realise you've short-changed yourself by a good 20 hours and there's no way you can bill it back to the job.

For most of us, that write-off is probably in the range of $2,000 - $3,000, which is a considerable amount of income when you think of it like that. But before you throw in the towel, an analysis of the client tells a much clearer story.

Skimming through your emtrics you can clearly see that in the past your alone, the client in question brout you $60,000 worth of brand new income simply through referrals by word of mouth. They've already paid you $20,000 for the project just delivered and have signed-up[ for another project starting next quarter. With a budgeted sales forecast of $120,000 per annum, that's a very big chunk of your revenue taken care of.

Suddenly, in context, that write-off doesn't look too bad and would be considered by many as a solid investment in a long-term client relationship. The point being that with the right information available at a click, the real value of each client in relation to your business is very clear. So why don't we track these metrics like we track our metrics online?

There is never a better time than now to review your business metrics to gain real knowledge about your clients and how productive your days have been. The results will be excellent inputs for cash flow forecasts and annual budgets.